


Leveling Up

by cyrene



Series: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [12]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: All Good Things Come to an End, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrene/pseuds/cyrene
Summary: All good things come to an end. But, remember, if it's not happy, it's not the end yet.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/265927
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54





	Leveling Up

**Author's Note:**

> A pandemic and two hurricanes later, and I'm still coming back to these losers. So, I don't want to break any hearts, here, but this may very well be the end of the series, this story here. We've got maybe two chapters to go? So, there's that. Bit of an end of an era for me, really. I've been coming back to this series for, what, five years now? Gorram, I write slow. It's a wonder y'all don't hate me. I'm shutting up now, read the story damnit.

Uncle picks Zuko and Katara up from the hospital. The EMTs hadn’t wanted to let Katara ride in the ambulance, but Zuko had insisted, and he was already protesting about having to go to the hospital. Basically, he annoyed them into it.

Azula is arrested at the hospital, and Zuko isn’t ready to talk about that yet. The guilt is overwhelming. He can’t help but hear his father’s voice, disappointed that he did not “handle this as a family” the way he had been raised to. But there’s no helping it; once the hospital gets involved, the police aren’t far behind.

Uncle is there to bring them home when Zuko is finally discharged. He looks exhausted, and near tears as he gently gives Zuko a hug, avoiding the bandages.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, my nephew, but what were you thinking, going there today?”

Zuko shrugs his uninjured shoulder, ashamed, and says, “I just thought someone ought to give her a chance.”

Uncle’s eyes are shining as he smiles up at Zuko. “That selfless optimism is what I’ve always loved about you, my nephew. Just please try not to get killed by it in the future.”

He brings them back to the Phoenix Diner, where Katara insists on helping Zuko up to bed while Uncle makes something to eat, and just a little tea, to take the edge off.

Katara isn’t satisfied until Zuko is in his bed, wrapped up in every blanket she can find.

“Are you trying to suffocate me?” he grumbles, throwing off the last two offerings.

“You’re in shock,” Katara points out, her fingers shaking as she tucks him in tightly. “You need to keep warm.”

“Katara.” He frees one hand, grabbing both of hers to still her movement and shaking. “I’m okay. Everything is okay.”

“You almost died for me,” she sniffles, tears falling down her cheeks. “How can I ever repay that?”

Zuko struggles to sit up without letting go of her hands. “You don’t have to repay me,” he says, and hopes the sincerity in his voice is enough to go on. “I would do it again if I had to, exactly the same way.”

Katara, crying in earnest now, wipes her face on some Kleenex from the bedside table. “I just – you mean so much to me, to all of us, I mean – I – I can’t –” He puts his arm around her, and she buries her face in his neck, tears soaking his t-shirt.

“I know,” he says. “I know, I know, Katara.”

***

When his pain meds kick in and he reluctantly falls asleep, Katara goes downstairs for a cup of tea. It’s so late it’s early, and the sun is coming up slowly, filling the diner with soft morning light.

“I have to go see your father today,” Uncle remarks, pouring her a cup. “Perhaps we would both feel better about me leaving my nephew in the state he’s in if you stayed behind to watch over him?”

Katara smiles weakly and nods. The tea seems to fortify her, though. She wonders what’s in it as she holds the warm cup in both her hands.

“You can count on me,” she says. “I’ll take good care of him.”

“I believe that,” Iroh says with a beaming smile, “but make sure you rest too. At least while he is resting. Don’t wear yourself out.”

Katara yawns, and allows him to shoo her towards the stairs leading to the upstairs apartment. Zuko is still sleeping. Katara lays out next to him on the bed, burrowing under the blankets and gently placing her arm around his waist. He sighs, and shifts closer to her, and Katara’s heart beats faster for a minute. But the exhaustion is too much, and she drifts off with him.

***

When Zuko wakes up it is slowly, through the haze of pain meds. There’s a foreign weight on his chest, which turns out to be Katara, so close they’re breathing in time. He starts -- surprised to find any girl in his bed, let alone _this_ girl – and that’s enough to set his shoulder off, reminding him of everything that happened to get him here. The movement is enough to wake her up, and she looks up at him with heavy, slow-blinking eyes.

“Hey,” she says, her voice low and sleep-husky.

“Hey,” he replies in what he hopes is not a squeak.

“Do you need your pain meds?” she asks, rubbing her eyes with one hand.

“No,” he says, “I think I’m fine for now. You can... you can go back to sleep, if you want to.”

He hopes and prays that there’s no wrong way for her to take this; he just wants her near, and right now she’s as near as she can be without actually climbing inside his skin.

She smiles a little, a loose and sleepy thing, as she lays her head back down on the pillow. He turns, and they’re face to face, now. She opens her mouth to say something, hesitates, then grabs the sheet and places a portion of it so it covers her mouth like a veil.

“I need to brush my teeth,” she says by way of explanation.

He nods, starts to reply, and, thinking better of it, grabs another portion of the sheet to cover his mouth. “There are extra toothbrushes in the bathroom,” he says. Her eyes are so soft and blue that it physically hurts him to look at them for too long. He focuses on a neutral spot on her nose, her forehead, anything but her eyes and mouth.

Katara is Katara, though, and she’s not majoring in psychology for nothing. She puts her free hand on the side of his face and gently pulls his face to hers, so they’re kissing, but with two layers of the sheets between them. It’s just a quick peck, that’s all. Even without the sheets, it would have been very chaste. But that lights a fire in Zuko he hadn’t even known was possible, and he pulls the sheets out of the way, pulls her closer to him, and kisses her for real.

“It’s too soon to say anything,” he says, kissing her between words, “but it’s there, when you want it.”

She pulls back a little, contemplates this, and replies, “Technically we’ve known each other for five years.”

He laughs. “All right, then. I love you, Katara. I want to make you as happy as you make me. Is... is that all right?”

Katara laughs, and he doesn’t know what to make of it at first, but then she kisses him again.

“I’m deliriously happy right now,” she says. He knows the feeling.

***

It all comes back to the game.

They have their regular game the next Saturday, as usual, though everyone is a little hesitant at first. It feels weird, playing at heroes, when they just helped take down the mob. They’ve had a taste now, and it’s intoxicating. They all tiptoe around their feelings as they settle into their seats at the table. But soon they’re back in the swing of things, saving the world and defeating the Firelord.

Zuko tells his therapist about every single game. She asks how he’s doing, and the answer comes out as what happened in game last week, or something funny one of his friends said. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her to do her job and make him better again, it’s more that he’s still out of practice opening up to people.

“You have to talk to someone,” the woman begs. “Even if it’s not me, you have to let someone in so you can let all this pain you’re holding onto go.”

But Uncle looks so happy now. And he can’t burden Katara with this – not two months into a relationship. No, until he learns how to talk to his therapist, Zuko is alone in this. And that’s probably how it should be, he thinks bitterly.


End file.
